RUMANIA: Enfant Terrible

Scandalous reports concerning His Majesty King Michael I, aged 5, were circulated last week by newsgatherers returning from the funeral of King Ferdinand I (TIME, Aug. 1). After snooping about Rumania for a fortnight, the Associated Press correspondent stated positively that:

1) The Dowager Queen Marie of Rumania calls her grandson, the King, “Mad Mickey” because of his “mischievous, impulsive nature.”

2) King Michael “loves to play with fire. . . and his tutors are afraid that some day he will burn down the entire palace with, everybody in it.”

3) “Probably his worst trait,” the Dowager Queen Marie says, “is that he loves to tease dogs and cats. He has been bitten several times by dogs, notably last summer, when the palace doctors gave him so much Pasteur treatment that he was sick for a fortnight.

Even this,” says his grandmother, “has not cured him of his love of teasing them. He takes roguish delight in teasing even his own favorite cocker spaniel, Brown Mumbo.”—

4) Recently Princess Helene of Greece and Rumania took her son, King Michael,to communion. When the priest was about to offer the consecrated wine to the boy king as he knelt before the altar, Michael said simply: “I don’t drink wine in the morning.” The priest assured the royal youngster that holy wine was not the same as other wine and that he must take at least a sip if he wanted to be a good boy and receive the blessing. After looking over at his mother, who wore an expression of mingled pain and amusement, Michael finally took the sacrament.

—In a juvenile book called Little Black Sambo there is a character called “Black Mumbo”. She is the mother of “Little Black Sambo”. Doubtless a copy of this book has reached King Michael.